The Odyssey: An epic masterpiece

The Odyssey (2026) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five); rated R, for violence, gore, dramatic intensity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.26

Not many screenwriters get to share a credit with Homer.

 

And Christopher Nolan is one of very few directors up to the challenge of the ancient Greek poet’s classic work.

 

Warriors three: Odysseus (Matt Damon, center), Cepheus (Jimmy Gonzales, left) and
Eurylochus (Himesh Patel) survey what's left of Troy, following their successful
siege of the city.

This is epic filmmaking on a truly grand scale, which is the only way to present a saga that has it all: gods and goddesses, men and monsters, full-scale battles, perilous sea voyages, and dastardly palace intrigue. Granted, Nolan skips some events, and minimizes the list of involved deities, but only scholars intimately familiar with Homer’s fabled poem will notice.

Nolan wisely holds our attention, during this three-hour masterpiece, by alternating the “money sequences” with quieter, even melancholy moments between primary characters. Indeed, judging by how Monday evening’s sold-out Sacramento crowd reacted, viewers were much more invested in what would become of Odysseus’ kingdom, during his absence, than with what he faced while struggling to return home.

 

Be prepared for a challenging initial character dump.

 

Nolan follows Homer’s template, opening the story in medias res — in the plot’s chronological middle — and then supplying What Came Before via flashbacks recounted by Odysseus and a few other key players.

 

Tensions are high in Ithaca, where 20 years have passed since King Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his men joined Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in his army’s successful invasion of the city of Troy. During this time, Odysseus’ wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), has endured a palace invasion by an ever-expanding number of boorish suitors hoping to become her new husband.

 

She has held them at bay by promising to remarry when she finishes weaving a shroud for Odysseus’ aged father, Laertes ... but she secretly unweaves each day’s progress at night.

 

(And she has gotten away with this for 20 years? That doth raise an eyebrow or two.)

 

The suitors have remained at bay, in part, because Odysseus’ renown, skill and might leave a massive shadow, even in his absence. During one flashback, we see that he’s the only man able to string his bow, inevitably following that up with his favorite party trick: shooting an arrow through a series of bundled axe heads.

 

Odysseus and Penelope’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), has come of age during this time. But he’s more eager to find his father — or, at least, to learn if he’s alive — than challenging his mother for the throne.

 

But one of the suitors, Antinous (Robert Pattinson), has grown tired of waiting. His vile nature emerges early on, when he grossly insults Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), Odysseus’ loyal, loquacious friend and swineherd. Although now blind, Eumaeus still is able to tell the young man what he’s doing wrong during a swordplay training session. Leguizamo exudes honor, honestly and loyalty.

 

Worse yet, Antinous contemptuously abuses Argus, Odysseus’ faithful and now quite aged dog. Pattinson oozes smarmy menace, with a scowl to match. (Do we hate Antinous? You betcha.)

 

Such behavior violates what becomes a crucial theme, as these events proceed: Zeus’ Law, the “guest friendship” decree that decrees how hosts should and should not act, and requires them to treat all guests with respect.

The Wild Robot: An animated treasure

The Wild Robot (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for action, peril and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.24

This is most sumptuously gorgeous animated film I’ve seen in years.

 

That’s surprising, given that it comes from the American Dreamworks Animation team; the verdant, sparkling look is much more typical of Tokyo’s Studio Ghibli. Indeed, in the production notes, director Chris Sanders described his film’s visual style as “a Monet painting in a Miyazaki forest.”

 

ROZZUM Unit 7134, renamed Roz (left), and Fink (right) contemplate the helpless
little gosling that has imprinted itself upon the large robot.

Image isn’t everything, of course, but recalling that Sanders co-directed and co-wrote Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon — both of which earned well-deserved Oscar nominations, for stories concerning species alien to each other, who learn to come together for the greater good — I had no doubt that he was just the right person to adapt Peter Brown’s popular 2016 middle-grade book.

Sanders solos this time, as both director and scripter; purists will recognize that he has, um. “massaged” Brown’s story a bit. Even so, the book’s tone and spirit have been translated faithfully, along with the essential moral that has become even more relevant today: “Kindness is a survival skill.”

 

The setting is our Earth, somewhen in the distant future. A savage storm prompts some sort of crash, which catapults a large crate onto a distant island bereft of human activity. Curious otters, poking inside the partially shattered crate, accidentally activate its inhabitant: a large, flexible robot dubbed ROZZUM Unit 7134.

 

It’s a companion robot, designed to fulfill “any and all tasks” requested by human owners. Upon activation, it requires a task ... but nobody can assign one.

 

The robot is voiced by Lupita Nyong’o, whose sensitive performance here reminds anew that we’ve long needed an Oscar category for such work. Her clipped, metallic, somewhat childlike cadence is note-perfect, as the robot attempts to make sense of these unexpected surroundings.

 

Small animals flee from her; large animals attack her. One encounter proves catastrophic, when she’s knocked over a cliff and lands hard on a goose nest. The mother is killed, the nest destroyed ... except for one egg. When a close scan reveals life inside, the robot decides to protect it.

 

That initially proves difficult, thanks to a predatory red fox that wishes the egg for breakfast. When it unexpectedly hatches, the fox is equally content to swallow the gosling; the robot somehow senses that this would be ... well ... inappropriate.

A Quiet Place: Day One — A solid prequel

A Quiet Place: Day One (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for terror, violent content and disturbing images

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

This film totally confounds expectations.

 

That’s wholly appropriate, since “startling” has been the hallmark of this sharply conceived series. These scripts have teeth ... and not just those belonging to the nightmarish predators that strike victims making the slightest sound. John Krasinski has co-written and co-produced all three, and he directed the first two; he and his co-writers don’t hesitate to surprise and upset viewers.

 

Moving as quickly as possible — without making any noise! — Eric (Joseph Quinn) and
Sam (Lupita Nyong'o) cross an open street while searching for a safe place to hid.

Even so, this prequel moves in unexpected directions, in terms of both plot beats and emotional resonance. 

The setting is New York, roughly a year prior to the events in 2018’s first film. Things begin quietly, as Samira (Lupita Nyong’o) contemplates another dull, grinding day as a terminally ill cancer patient, in a hospice facility outside the city. She’s stuck at anger, in the five stages of grief ... or, perhaps, she settled on anger after dismissing bargaining and acceptance.

 

Her only friend is her service cat, Frodo, aka — as we’ll soon discover — The World’s Greatest And Most Resourceful Feline.

 

Reuben (Alex Wolff), her care nurse, is impressively patient; Sam, bitter and waspish, is unwilling to “play nice” during group sessions. An outing to Manhattan also holds no interest, until she makes Reuben promise that they’ll stop for pizza at Patsy’s, her long-ago favorite Harlem pizzaria.

 

Unfortunately, the outing is interrupted. Hundreds of massive, meteor-like objects crash into the city — and elsewhere, all over the world — and disgorge powerful, hostile extraterrestrials that attack without warning.

 

Fans of the series know that these creatures have an acute sense of hearing, but are blind and without a functional sense of smell. But the terrified Manhanttanites aren’t yet aware of this, and — with shocking rapidity — people are devoured in mid-scream, or when they slam open a car door, or drop anything ... or even cough or sneeze.

 

Director Michale Sarnoski — who co-wrote this script with Krasinski — doesn’t dwell on these attacks; the PG-13 rating is respected, with a lack of gore. But that doesn’t make the attacks any less terrifying, as victims are snatched out of cinematographer Pat Scola’s rat-a-tat framing shots, accompanied by heart-stopping blasts from Alexis Grapsas’ score.

 

The resulting blood trails also are sufficiently unsettling.

 

Sam is knocked unconscious during the initial chaos; she wakens inside a theater with Reuben and numerous other survivors. Her initial attempt to speak is muted by Henri (Djimon Hounsou), huddling with his family. She gets the point, and is relieved to find Frodo still at her side.

 

(Series fans with recognize Hounsou’s Henri from 2020’s A Quiet Place Part II.)

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — Sophomore slump

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, strong violence and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.11.22

If this new entry falls short of its predecessor, it’s mostly because the 2018 film set the bar so impressively high.

 

Okoye (Danai Gurira, left) and Shuri (Letitia Wright) adopt disguises in an effort to
infiltrate MIT, where they hope to locate — and rescue — the scientist who has
developed a controversial vibranium detector.

That said, director Ryan Coogler’s second entry in the Black Panther series has a massive hole in its center: the tragic absence of star Chadwick Boseman. Try as they might, Coogler and co-scripter Joe Robert Cole — both of whom brought us the first film — can’t quite fill that gap.

And, in an effort to compensate — while also honoring the series’ ongoing heritage — they spend too much time on grief, lamentation and bleak dialogue exchanges between the story’s primary characters. You’ll find very few smiles in this long-winded saga, which at a ridiculously self-indulgent 161 minutes, overstays its welcome by at least one massive melee too many.

 

On top of which, this story’s central character — the science-minded prodigy, Shuri (Letitia Wright) — is burdened by an unnecessary amount of heartbreak.

 

A year has passed since the untimely death of Shuri’s older brother, King T’Challa, from circumstances left vague. Wakanda’s Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) struggles to protect their nation from intervening world powers, some of whom — notably France and the United States — wish to get their hands on the African realm’s fabled vibranium metal, with its extraordinary abilities to absorb, store and release large amounts of kinetic energy.

 

This meteoric substance also remains invisible to conventional scanners, making it a potential game-changer in global rivalries … which Queen Ramonda knows only too well. She has no intention of sharing vibranium with anybody.

 

Ah, but elsewhere at sea, a U.S. research facility is monitoring the progress of a deep-water machine that CAN detect — and has found — an undersea vibranium deposit. But before this discovery can be celebrated, everybody at the facility is slaughtered by an ocean-going platoon of blue-skinned underwater denizens, led by the remorselessly vicious Namor (Tenoch Huerta), lord of the hidden undersea civilization of Talokan.

 

(A brief sidebar, for those unfamiliar with Marvel Comics history: Namor, most famously known as the Sub-Mariner, dates all the way back to 1939. Since then, he has become both hero and villain, generally in service of trying to prevent his undersea kingdom of Atlantis from being discovered and/or destroyed by “surface dwellers.” 

 

(More recently in the Marvel Comics universe — given that both are hidden civilizations with advanced tech and militaristic tendencies — Wakanda and Atlantis have been embroiled in a punishing, long-term war that has wreaked havoc on both sides: hence, this film’s core plotline.)

 

(But I’ve no idea while Coogler and Cole made up “Talokan,” when they could — should — simply have used Atlantis.)

The 355: Bad-ass women to the rescue!

The 355 (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong violence, brief profanity and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Not until very late in this film does a key character explain that “The 355” was the code name of a female spy — identity unknown — who was part of the Culper Ring, during the American Revolution.

 

Having completed their mission (or so they assum), the improvised espionage team —
from left, Graciela (Penélope Cruz), Mace (Jessica Chastain), Khadijah (Lupita Nyong'o)
and Marie (Diane Kruger) — report their results to Marks (John Douglas Thompson).

Which makes it a needlessly vague title for director Simon Kinberg’s fast-paced espionage thriller. (Honestly, I’m surprised Universal let the title slide; it’s utterly unmarketable.)

For starters, this story — by Kinberg, Theresa Beck and Bek Smith — concerns four (five?) “clandestine heroines who risk their lives in a fight for freedom against all odds.” (Ya gotta love studio publicity sheets.)

 

Kinberg’s globe-trotting romp is a well-crafted popcorn flick: an intriguing premise that’s short on logic, long on momentum, and highlighted by some inventively staged — and frequently ballsy — stunt work.

 

Events kick off in a palatial estate near Bogota, Colombia, where what appears to be a high-profile drug deal actually concerns a small external hard drive that contains a nasty program: one capable of wirelessly interfering with any computer — from navigational systems on a plane, to a phone in your pocket — anywhere in the world.

 

The deal goes awry, much to the dismay of The Unpleasant Man In Charge (Jason Flemyng). In the confusion, Luis (Edgar Ramírez) escapes with the drive.

 

Knowing it’s a hot commodity, Luis solicits bids from various international spy agencies, including the CIA; the case goes to impetuous agent Mason “Mace” Brown (Jessica Chastain) and her longtime partner/best friend, Nick Fowler (Sebastian Stan). The exchange, scheduled at a café in Paris, short-circuits when one of the valises is snatched by a bad-ass interloper (Diane Kruger).

 

Cue the first audacious scuffle/chase choreographed by stunt/fight coordinators James O’Donnell and James Embree, as Nick goes after Luis, and Mace follows the uninvited gate-crasher. The latter gets away, only to discover that she grabbed the valise with the CIA’s $3 million payoff.

 

On top of which, Luis’ valise — which should have contained the hard drive — has nothing but wadded-up paper: a double-cross. (The first of many, in this oblique story.)

Us: Wasted potential

Us (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for violence, profanity and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.22.19

Oh, dear.

This is what happens, when you succumb to the intoxicating warmth of too much fawning publicity.

We have met the enemy, and he is us: Gabe (Wilson Duke) and his daughter Zora
(Shahadi Wright Joseph) nervously confront a terrifying unknown, with the
only weapons at hand.

Case in point: Jordan Peele, likely still basking in the glow of a well-deserved Academy Award, for his big-screen writing/directing debut on 2017’s Get Out.

And then, for his sophomore follow-up, he pulls an M. Night Shyamalan.

Peele’s much-anticipated new film — teased for several months now, by deliciously creepy-crawly previews — is a profound disappointment.

Much worse than that, actually. Its beguiling first act notwithstanding, Us quickly becomes boring, stupid and relentlessly gory.

It’s a classic example of an enthusiastic one-sentence elevator pitch that has nowhere to go, because the premise remains half-baked and unfulfilled. All suspense-laden expectation, and no payoff. All style, and no substance.

Such a pity.

No question: Peele is a master of mood and scene-setting. He gets considerable mileage from cinematographer Mike Gioulakis’ disconcertingly s-l-o-w pans toward — or away from — a tight close-up, whether of somebody’s face or (ahem) hundreds upon hundreds of white rabbits in stacked wire cages.

Rarely have amusement park attractions and deserted — yet oddly pristine — subway stations been more unsettling.

And, yes, there’s no denying the utter horror of the moment when one faces a strikingly similar — and yet somehow defective— duplicate of one’s own self. Director Don Siegel knew that full well, when he helmed 1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Peele capitalizes on that same sense of paralyzing dread.

Trouble is, Siegel and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring had a solid template from which to build their film: Jack Finney’s marvelously disturbing novel. Peele serves as his own quarterback — writer, director, producer — and fumbles the ball.

Black Panther: Sleek and polished

Black Panther (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for considerable action violence and (you gotta love this) a "brief rude gesture"
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.16.18

Marvel’s superhero movies have come in a variety of flavors thus far:

• Rip-snortin’ excitement (The Avengers, Captain America);

• Shakespearean high melodrama (Thor);

• Goofy adventure (Guardians of the Galaxy); and even

• Vulgar insolence (Deadpool).

This one’s different yet again.

T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman, left) is dismayed by an unexpected challenge to his
birthright, which comes from N'Jadaka (Michael B. Jordan) and takes place at
Warrior Falls (inspired by South Africa's majestic Oribi Gorge).

Black Panther is the first superhero film steeped with honor, nobility and heritage, while still delivering the requisite dollops of action, along with a soupçon of humor. Careful attention is paid, as well, to introducing a culture defined equally by its spiritual, mystical and technological elements.

On top of which, director Ryan Coogler and co-scripter Joe Robert Cole wrap the entire package with a thoughtful discussion of a contemporary Big Issue.

Add a star and supporting cast who bring dignity and grace to their respective roles, and you truly couldn’t ask for more.

The roster is led by Chadwick Boseman’s impeccably gracious and regal portrayal of T’Challa, reluctant new king of the little-known African country of Wakanda, which has been concealed for centuries — by design — from the rest of the world. This kingdom’s essential back-story is provided during an economical prolog, via a fascinating style of “shifting sand” animation later revealed as Wakanda’s signature means of telecommunication.

Boseman’s stance, manner of speech — his very aura — bespeak graciousness and a compassionate ruler’s tendency to suffer over difficult decisions. He rarely raises his voice — never needs to — and there’s no doubt, even when he dons his super-heroic suit and becomes the Black Panther, that he’s the smartest, kindest and most perceptive person in the room.

Well, maybe not the smartest. That honor falls to his sassy, über-cool younger sister, Shuri (Letitia Wright), the tech wizard who out-dazzles James Bond’s Q and Batman’s Lucius Fox. Her enthusiastic gadgetry genius aside, Shuri gets all the best one-liners, and Wright has a smirk to die for.

But make no mistake: Shuri also is as ferociously protective of her older brother, as T’Challa is of his entire kingdom.

Queen of Katwe: Check and mate!

Queen of Katwe (2016) • View trailer 
4.5 stars. Rated PG, for occasional dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.30.16

Inspirational stories don’t come much more heartwarming than this one.

Queen of Katwe depicts the unlikely saga of Phiona Mutesi, a Ugandan slum girl who, despite overwhelming odds both cultural and socio-economic, grew up to become one of her country’s first titled female chess players. And — mind you — she’s only 20 years old, as these words are typed.

As Coach Robert Katende (David Oyelowo, standing) watches expectantly, Phiona
(Madina Nalwanga, far left) plays a telling game of chess against Benjamin
(Ethan Nazario Lubega, far right).

Director Mira Nair’s fact-based account of Phiona’s rise to chess glory is earnest and uplifting, while also unflinching and uncompromising. Our immersion in the Ugandan slum of Katwe can’t help drawing anguished gasps: this despite the fact that scripter William Wheeler — adapting Tim Crothers’ January 2011 ESPN Magazine article and subsequent book — clearly has glossed over some of the grimmer details.

This is, after all, a family-friendly Disney drama; unduly horrifying the target audience would have been a serious mistake. But Nair and Wheeler nonetheless make their points, most notably the tragedy that results every time a child’s inquisitive mind is blunted — or shut down — by environmental circumstance.

We can but wonder: How many other Phiona Mutesis are Out There, waiting to have their respective passions nurtured? Each and every one left unfound, uninspired, is an incalculable loss.

Nair is blessed further by a talented roster of performers, beginning with stars Lupia Nyong’o, David Oyelowo and Madina Nalwanga; rarely has the input of a casting director — in this case, Dinaz Stafford — yielded such impressive results. While it’s true that Nair is a gifted director with the skill to extract nuanced performances from her actors, these efforts clearly are easier when granted such gifted raw materials from which to sculpt the characters.

Nair has a long and productive history with ensemble dramas that place their protagonists at a cultural crossroads, from Salaam Bombay and Mississippi Masala to Monsoon Wedding and The Namesake. We can’t help identifying with the characters in her films, who struggle with grace and dignity to navigate generational gaps, language barriers and institutional hurdles, all while trying to remain true to themselves.

The Jungle Book: Family-friendly adventure

The Jungle Book (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.15.16

The CGI tiger in 2012’s big-screen adaptation of Life of Pi was quite impressive.

This one is better.

Although Mowgli (Neel Sethi) often is puzzled by the rule-laden lectures he constantly
receives from Bagheera, the boy is about to discover precisely why some of these
lessons are so important.

Indeed, the myriad faux animals in Disney’s fresh take on Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book are rendered with jaw-dropping authenticity. Many viewers likely will spend much of the first act trying to decide which (if any) of the critters are real — either in close-up or distant group shots — and which are genius computer animation.

I was convinced that a darling little tree frog was real, as it hopped out of some water, until it brushed itself in an adorable — but decidedly unfroglike — manner. At which point, I simply abandoned the exercise and settled comfortably into an exhilarating experience that Kipling himself never could have imagined.

Justin Marks’ screenplay owes more to Disney’s animated 1967 adaptation than Kipling’s nine short stories about the “man cub” Mowgli, and his adventures with the various creatures — benign and dangerous — that make their home in the Indian jungle. Fans of the earlier animated film will be pleased to see Marks hit all the narrative and character high points, most notably those concerning the fatherly panther Bagheera, the free-spirited bear Baloo, and the utterly malevolent tiger Shere Khan.

Mowgli is played to impressionable, young-kid perfection by 12-year-old newcomer Neel Sethi, introduced during a bravura chase through the jungle, which is choreographed for maximum breathtaking excitement by director Jon Favreau and editor Mark Livolsi. It’s an impressive prologue: a pell-mell blend of running, jumping and tumbling through jungle undergrowth, up and down trees, and across small canyons.

I can’t imagine how Sethi and Favreau did it, and — of course — that’s the magic of movies. (For starters, the kid must have the world’s toughest feet.)

Back-story eventually reveals that a toddler-age Mowgli was found by Bagheera (voiced by Ben Kingsley), who brought the child to Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o), one of many wolves belonging to a pack led by alpha male Akela (Giancarlo Esposito). Although subsequently raised in the way of the wolves — most particularly the chanted law, “The strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack” — Mowgli cannot help the blossoming human ingenuity that enables him to “do tricks” (Bagheera’s term) that simplify certain tasks.

Such “tricks,” alas, are met with suspicion by the jungle’s many other creatures.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens — Everything old is new again

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.18.15

No question about it: J.J. Abrams definitely is one with The Force.

The writer/director/producer who so smartly revived the Star Trek franchise has done the same with Star Wars.

With nasty First Order storm troopers hot on their heels, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John
Boyega) do their best to survive long enough to get a valuable little droid into the hands of
good-guy Resistance fighters.

After the most recent trilogy prompted a blend of disappointment, disgust and outright hostility — Jar Jar Binks, anyone? — fans could be excused the raised-eyebrow wariness that initially greeted news of fresh doings in that galaxy far, far away. But maybe there really is something to the all-pervasive Force, because — for several months now — we’ve been part of an escalating global awareness that Something Great was in the offing.

Indeed.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t merely a 30-years-later continuation of the universe-spanning saga that (technically) left off back in 1983, with Return of the Jedi. Abrams and co-scripters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have delivered a new chapter that simultaneously advances the ongoing narrative, while strongly evoking, echoing and honoring everything that we loved about that wonderful debut, back in 1977.

Abrams sought out the best: Kasdan will be recognized as the writer who worked on both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (not to mention Raiders of the Lost Ark). He lives and breathes this stuff; he also understands the delicate art of imitating Hollywood’s Golden Age serials — with their alternating dollops of melodramatic angst and cliff-hanging action scenes — without crossing the line into overly broad farce.

And, as befits the 30-years-later scenario, we’ve been granted a fresh — and fresh-faced — cast of new characters, possessing varying capabilities, and thrust into ghastly events with either reluctance or grim resolve. At the same time, fans will cheer the return of old friends, whether human, droid or Wookie.

It can’t have been easy to deliver a film that will please both newcomers and longtime fans with light-sabers drawn; Abrams and his crew pulled it off, and then some.

Non-Stop: Well-executed terror in the air

Non-Stop (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for action, intense suspense, mild profanity, fleeting sensuality and drug content
By Derrick Bang

This is a taut, tidy and thoroughly engrossing little thriller ... although it won’t do a thing for people already nervous about flying.

The resourceful Bill (Liam Neeson) thinks up several quite clever ways to expose the
identity of the indivisual who keeps sending threatening text messages ... but the
unknown tormentor/terrorist eludes our hero at every turn. Eventually, even Jen
(Julianne Moore) begins to wonder if the situation is beyond Bill's ability to solve.

John W. Richardson, Christopher Roach and Ryan Engle have concocted a twisty, danger-laden mystery that Agatha Christie would have admired: a whodunit and howzithappening that makes clever use of the claustrophobic setting and modern smart phone technology. Granted, the premise is preposterous, and interior details don’t withstand much scrutiny, but director Jaume Collet-Serra and editor Jim May move things quickly enough to obscure the logical lapses.

I also applaud the casting and sidebar character development, elements usually overlooked in lesser action thrillers. Although this is Liam Neeson’s show, and he commands the stage quite ably, we also get solid work from a dozen or so supporting players.

Neeson and Collet-Serra also worked together on 2011’s Unknown, although that initially suspenseful thriller was undone by its sloppy script. If the improved work here on Non-Stop reflects learning from that earlier mistake, then it’s nice to know all concerned paid attention.

The premise is simple: Veteran air marshal Bill Marks (Neeson) boards a routine flight from New York City to London, and starts receiving cryptic text messages from some unknown sender who demands the transfer of $150 million into a numbered account ... or passengers on the flight will start to die, at 20-minute intervals. It’s immediately obvious, from what the sender knows, that s/he is on the plane.

Bill’s major issue is credibility: How can he possibly take such a crazy ultimatum seriously? And when evidence eventually suggest that this unknown terrorist truly has the means to carry out such threats, how can Bill get anybody to believe him?

Character back-story muddies the water, of course. Bill is a man under a cloud: an alcoholic carrying a heavy personal burden — details of which emerge slowly — and therefore a less than reliable judge of any given situation, in the eyes of his colleagues and superiors. Even his fellow on-flight air marshal, Jack Hammond (Anson Mount), finds it difficult to accept Bill’s story at face value.

Bill does everything by the book; he immediately confides in the plane’s captain (Linus Roache) and veteran flight attendant, Nancy (Michelle Dockery). Keeping the situation concealed from the passengers is essential, but that becomes progressively more difficult, as Bill’s invisible cat-and-mouse tormentor escalates the stakes.

12 Years a Slave: A brilliant, timeless drama

12 Years a Slave (2013) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rating: R, for grim violence, brutality, nudity and brief sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.15.13

Some films transcend their big-screen confines.

The story is so compelling, the direction so deft, the performances so persuasively real, that we cease to see the screen or the acting, and simply become immersed in the experience.

As Epps (Michael Fassbender, center) expresses far too much appreciation for the
cotton-picking skills of Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) gradually
recognizes the unpalatable, one-sided "understanding" between this master and his
attractive slave ... but, of course, can neither do or say anything.

12 Years a Slave is such a film.

I remember, years back, getting wholly caught up in a stage production of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. At one point, the fragile Laura Wingfield stepped outside the front door and onto the porch of the simple but effective set, and I grew concerned; she wasn’t dressed warmly enough, and surely she’d get cold out there, late at night.

That’s how invested I was in British director Steve McQueen’s sensitive, unflinching and utterly mesmerizing handling of this film.

John Ridley’s note-perfect screenplay is adapted from Solomon Northup’s 12 Years a Slave, a rare 19th century memoir by a man who lived what he wrote — no, make that endured and survived — and what we now see on the screen. Northup’s saga is brutal, horrifying, even unbelievable at times. We civilized, 21st century citizens of the world cannot comprehend men — and women — behaving so callously, so cruelly to their fellow men and women.

Horrific times, we think, seeking solace. Nearly two centuries ago. Surely, we’ve become better in the meantime.

But then I reflect on the Nazi persecution of the Jews, with the often willing participation of “good Germans,” and I reflect on young Malala Yousafzai, nearly killed by Taliban thugs who’ve promised to keep trying, just as they bomb schoolchildren and continue to maim and behead others who’d encourage education, and I realize what McQueen clearly intends to demonstrate.

This film isn’t a portal to another time, another place. Sadly, it’s a mirror to the here and now.

The year is 1841, in pre-Civil War United States; we meet Solomon Northup (a simply astonishing performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor) as a dignified gentleman living with his family in Saratoga, N.Y. He walks assuredly among his white peers, treated with respect whether on the street or conducting business in a shop.

Although, even here, we get a flash of underlying tension: a flicker of ... something ... in the eyes of one white aristocrat who registers Solomon’s presence, his station, and says nothing, but silently speaks volumes.